Saturday, December 17, 2011

“They’ve all escaped? All
three?” he said incredulously when Fen told him. She nodded, her throat tight.
“I don’t believe this,” the captain muttered, rubbing his eyes. “There must be
a leak here at the palace. Did you give anyone else this information?”

“No,” Fen said, perhaps too
quickly. Delitian eyed her suspiciously.

“I’ll tell the King you did
your best, then,” he told her slowly. “But I suppose there’s another way you
can help.” Fen’s heart was sinking. Despite her protests against Julan, she had
half been hoping that Delitian would just tell her to leave, relieving her from
this mess.

“What is it?”

“I want you to find the author
of The Common Tongue.”

“The broadsheet about my
father?”

“The very one.” Fen gave a
small sigh of relief. At least there would be no murder involved – she hoped.
“When we make official inquiries, people just look stupid and assure us they
have no idea what we are talking about. We think you may have better luck –
particularly if you approach less-reputable citizens – persons who place profit
above honor.”

Like Helseth, Fen
thought to herself.

“First we want you to ask
around and discover who is writing these lies. Then we want you to find him and
persuade him to stop printing lies. The manner of the persuasion is left to
your discretion. You will be
discreet, of course,” he said firmly. “We don’t want to appear to be
threatening the time-honored Imperial traditions of encouraging free speech.”

“Right,” Fen said coldly,
turning to leave. “I’ll take care of it.” Feeling strongly that the anonymous
writer probably wasn’t printing much in the way of lies at all, Fen returned
through the darkened streets to the Winged Guar, where the bar had, for the
most part, emptied to a few late-night drinkers. She went straight to her room,
eager to sleep, and found Julan still there, sitting on her bed, flipping
through a book that had been on her table.

“Oh,” he said, tossing it
aside as Fen opened the door. “Hi. Um. I wanted to talk to you.”

“What?” Fen said tiredly as
she closed the door, wanting nothing more to fall into bed.

“Fen,” Julan said, standing up
and coming over to her. “I know you don’t want to think about this, but you
have to realize sooner or later that being this close to your father is a bad
idea.”

“Julan,” Fen said, rubbing her
eyes. “I don’t want to deal with this right now.”

“You’re never going to want to
deal with it!” Julan said earnestly. “Fen, I’m telling you this because I’m worried about you! Just being in this
city is a huge risk, not to mention the fact that you’re in and out of the
Palace every day! It isn’t safe!”

“I’ve done things that are a
lot more dangerous than this.”

“You’re not listening to me,”
Julan said severely. “Fen, Helseth’s tried to kill you twice. Who’s to say he
won’t try again?”

“I have to do this, Julan,”
Fen told him. “I know it doesn’t make any sense and I know I’ll never be the
Princess of Mournhold again, but…but I need to do this. And I need you to
understand that.” There was a long silence in which they both stared at one
another, defiant, then Julan’s eyes finally flicked down.

“Fine,” he said in a resigned
tone. “Fine. You’re guarshit crazy, Fen, but if you’re staying here then so am
I.” Fen gave him a small smile.

“Great. Get some rest.
Tomorrow we have to go find the one who’s writing those broadsheets about my
father being a poisoner.”

“So you…killed the traitors?”
Julan asked nervously.

“I let them go. They all fled
the city. Delitian never suspected a thing.” Julan grinned broadly.

“What a fetcher,” he said
cheerfully, pulling open Fen’s door. “Wake me up when we have to leave.”
Smiling, Fen shut the door after Julan and collapsed on the bed, exhausted.

The following morning, Fen
roused Julan and they set off for the Great Bazaar, Fen having found that the
marketplace is usually the best source of information. She sent Julan to the
more bustling half of the Bazaar, figuring he would have better luck there, and
she moved around the edges of the crowd around the theatre, watching for
someone that looked as if they might tell her something.

At some point, Fen heard her
name called, loudly, across the square. She thought for a moment it was
Plitinius again, but instead a small Dunmer woman was hurrying towards her, her
hair drawn up in an elegant twist.

“He’s in Firewatch. We’re
staying with my parents until we can set up a new bookshop somewhere. I had to
come back to get the rest of my books, I just couldn’t stand the thought of
someone taking them. Bedal didn’t want me to come.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Fen
said quietly, directing Sanaso away from a nearby High Ordinator. “You could be
recognized.”

“I’m only here to get my
books, then I’ll be back in Firewatch. Come with me!” she said brightly, as if
she had been best friends with Fen all her life. Fen followed her as she
unlocked the door to the bookshop and slipped inside. It was dark and smelt a
bit musty, a scent that hadn’t been there yesterday.

“Oh, gods, it’s barely been a
day!” Sanaso exclaimed, closing the door behind Fen and going to open the shades
over the windows. “Some of these books are quite old, though.” She disappeared
into the room behind the counter and Fen sat down in a small reading area in
the corner. Sanaso reappeared a moment later, her arms full of empty leather
sacks. She went to the first shelf and began piling books inside as Fen
watched.

“Sanaso,” Fen said slowly as
the bookseller moved to the lower shelves.

“Mmm?”

“Have you read The Common Tongue?”

“Well…” Sanaso hesitated, then
turned to face Fen. “I’ll tell you, but just because you helped us so dearly.
I’ve read it, and Bedal’s read it, and it worries us.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know who
that could be,” Sanaso said, turning back to her books. “But I would ask
someone that deals in shady business.” She tied the sack shut and reached for
another one. “Like a pawnbroker.”

“Is there a pawnbroker in
Mournhold?”

“Sure, on the other side of
the square.” Fen quickly stood up.

“Thank you, Sanaso, and I’m
glad you and Bedal are safe, but I’ve got to go.”

“Have a book,” Sanaso said suddenly,
gesturing to the shelves. “As thanks. You like books, don’t you?”

“Oh, Sanaso, I couldn’t –”

“Please, Fen? Here, you would
like this one.” Sanaso reached for a thick, simple-looking book bound in red,
embossed with – she was surprised to see – her own family’s crest. Fen took it
and opened the cover to read the title. Her heart skipped a beat. The Complete Real Barenziah. By Anonymous. She
looked back up at Sanaso, who was grinning broadly.

“There are only a few copies
of the complete version. And that’s the uncensored one, too.”

“And this is about Queen
Barenziah?” Fen said breathlessly, looking back down at the title page.

“Thank you again!” she said
brightly as Fen went back outside. She slid The
Complete Real Barenziah into her bag. She had never realized there was a
biography of her grandmother other than the officially chartered one. Her
father had made sure to keep close tabs on the books that entered the Palace
library when she was young.

Fen didn’t see Julan anywhere,
so she crossed the square by herself to the pawnbroker’s. It was dim and grimy
inside, the shelves and tables piled with all manner of broken and unwanted
objects. A stooped Argonian man in a stained white cotton shirt stood behind
the cluttered counter, studying a cracked, dusty soulgem by the light of a greasy
oil lamp.

“Um…excuse me.” The Argonian
looked up and his reptilian face contorted into a mean expression.

“You buying or selling?” he
asked shortly, setting the soulgem down.

“Looking, actually. For
information.”

“We don’t sell that here,” he
snapped back. “You buy, you sell, or you get out. No looking.”

“Can I buy the information
then?” she asked, reaching into her bag and extracting several septims. The
Argonian eyed them greedily and she slid them across the counter.

“What do you want to know?” he
growled, snatching the coins out of the air and reaching below the counter for
a dented lockbox.

“I’m looking for the author of
The Common Tongue.”

“Here’s what I’ve heard,” the
Argonian said in a steely voice, dropping the coins into his lockbox and
shutting it again. “I’ve heard that the one who writes The Common Tongue is someone named Trels Varis. Now, this is not a
name known to me personally. I make it a habit to know the names of people in Mournhold
personally. And this one I do not know. And other people I talk to also do not
know. Which is noteworthy in itself. I make the guess that this one is
well-hid, and wants to stay well-hid. But where do I first hear about this one?
In the Craftsmen’s Hall. So maybe that is a one place to look.”

“Thank you,” Fen told him, and
she quickly went back out into the warm brightness of the Bazaar.

“There you are!” Fen heard someone say, and Julan hurried over to
her from where he had been sitting with his arm around a young Dunmer woman.
“I’ve been looking everywhere.”

“Looking hard, I see,” Fen
said as the Dunmer woman glared at Julan and stood to leave. “We’ve got to go
to Godsreach. The pawnbroker said that he might be in the Craftsmen’s Hall.”

The Craftsmen’s Hall was a
large building situated near the Winged Guar. It housed all manner of builders
and crafters, as the name suggested, and as they entered they were immediately
accosted with the noise and bustle of the place as soot-covered apprentices
hurried back and forth, their faces harried and their arms full. They managed
to stop one or two people, but no one was much help when asked about Trels
Varis. At some point, Fen lost track of Julan – he didn’t reappear until she
was arguing with a red-faced Nord by the forge.

“Hey,” he said, tugging on her
sleeve. “Come look at this.” Fen left the Nord mid-sentence and followed Julan
out of the thick of people and down a short hallway that ended in a single
door. A sign was posted over the door, reading Keep Out! in thick, black ink.

“Well, that’s conspicuous,” Fen muttered, checking the door. It was, as
she suspected, locked, though a quick spell and it clicked and swung open into
a storage room so small that Fen could touch two walls at once with her arms
outstretched. There was a large trapdoor set into the floor, and Fen and Julan
exchanged a brief glance before Fen knelt to open it.

“Excuse me,” an irritated voice said as Fen’s feet touched the floor
at the bottom. She turned and saw she was in some sort of office – there were
several tables laden with parchment and quills and the shelves were stacked
with untreated guar hide. Four or five Dunmer men sat around the tables, and
they all looked like they had been busily at work until a few seconds ago – now
they all stared at Fen. The man who had spoken, who sported a blaze of
shoulder-length red hair, stood up abruptly and walked around the tables to
Fen. “What are you doing here? And may I suggest you make your answer very
clear, because this office and what we do here is a well-kept-secret. And we
wish to keep it a secret, even if it means that you do not leave here alive.”
Julan dropped unceremoniously from the ladder behind Fen at that moment, and
the red-haired Dunmer glared sternly at both of them.

“Are you Trels Varis?” Fen
asked.

“What does it matter to you?”

“You will stop printing lies
about King Helseth,” Fen said firmly, and Trels Varis smiled slowly and walked
a circle around Fen once, looking her up and down with a smug expression. Julan
curled his hand around the pommel of this blade, and Fen touched his arm to
stop him.

“Feranos, hand me that file,” Trels
Varis said, going over to the tables, and one of the Dunmer at the tables
extracted a thick folder from beneath the parchment before him. “Let’s see,”
Varis said slowly, opening the folder and flicking through it. “Ah. Here it
is.” He looked up at Fen, an uncomfortable smile on his face. “Allow me to
formally welcome you to our office, Princess.”
Fen’s heart skipped a beat.

“I – What are you talking
about?” she said quickly, though her voice shook.

“You know exactly what I am
talking about,” Varis snapped, dropping the folder on the table behind him.
“Our mission here is to expose the truth about Helseth to the people of
Mournhold, and part of that truth is his illegitimate daughter. Trouble is, we
have so much to reveal about him that we haven’t gotten around to that lovely
little tidbit yet.” Fen realized her hands were shaking. This wasn’t simply a
matter of following Delitian’s orders anymore – now it concerned her too.

“How did you find out?” she
asked, still in half-disbelief. “It – It was kept a secret.”

“We have our ways,” Varis said
simply. “And when this city finds out that their Princess is also the
Nerevarine, Helseth will have a lovely fit.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Who’s to stop me?”

“I will,” Fen said angrily.
“If I have to cut down each one of you in turn I will. I won’t let you endanger
my family like this.” A spark formed in her hand, a spell dancing in her
fingertips. The men at the tables glanced at one another. Varis looked somewhat
unnerved now. There was a brief silence in which everyone stood tense, waiting
to see what Fen or Varis would do. Finally, Varis broke – he picked up the
folder with Fen’s information and carried it to the fireplace.

“I am an honorable man,
Princess,” he said, this time with sincerity in his voice. He tossed the folder
into the fire, and it immediately started to blacken and curl around the edges.
“I admire your blind dedication to your kin, however rotten those kin may be.
We will stop printing about the Royal Family at once.”

“Thank you,” Fen said softly,
and the sparks dancing around her fingers died.

“A word of warning,” Varis
said, crossing the room to her again. “Should you return here, we will be gone.
We will not print anything about Helseth again, but that will not stop us from
exposing the other lies of this city.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Begone, then.” Fen and
Julan climbed back up the trapdoor and made their way back to the Palace, not
speaking. Varis’s knowledge of her identity made her anxious, and she wondered
nervously who else in Mournhold knew who she was.

Delitian was exceptionally
pleased with Fen’s confirmation that The
Common Tongue would no longer print any material concerning the Royal
Family.

“You show fine judgment,
Princess, and a light touch,” he said gesturing to a few pageboys that were
passing through the Reception Chamber. They nodded and hurried off. “We are
very satisfied with your service, and are pleased to give you a rich reward,
and great honor besides.” The pageboys returned, carrying a long, thin wooden
crate between them. They moved to stand directly before Delitian, and he lifted
the lid of the crate to reveal a long, black-and-red blade laying in a velvet
cushion. “I give you a King’s Oath Blade – exactly like those used by the Royal
Guard. Only those sworn to the king’s service and tested by great trials may
use them. They bear deadly curses that kill thieves and traitors. I salute you,
and welcome you into our brotherhood.” Delitian lifted the sword from its
cushion and held it out to Fen, who took it without showing her disgust.

“Thank you,” she said as one
of the pageboys took the crate under his arm and departed, while the other
remained by Delitian’s elbow.

“There’s one other thing,”
Delitian added in feigned afterthought. “Queen Barenziah wishes to speak to
you. Neldam will take you to her chambers.” Fen’s stomach dropped.

“You told her?” she hissed. “You told
her I was here?!”

“I told no one,” Delitian
snapped. “I was telling her and the King of this anonymous aid’s recent help
with the traitors and she came to me privately and asked to meet with you.”

“I can’t,” Fen said at once.
“They can’t know I’m here.”

“I made an exception for you
once, Princess,” Delitian snapped. “Do not ask me to do it again. If you refuse
the Queen’s summons, I will be forced to jail you without trial.” For a moment,
they just glared at one another, then Fen gave a small nod.

“Fine,” she muttered furiously.
“I’ll go.”

“Good. Neldam, take them to
the Queen’s chambers,” Delitian directed the pageboy, and he left down the
hallway that led to the guard’s quarters, leaving Fen and Julan alone with the
page.

“This way,” the page said,
starting toward a door.

“One moment,” Fen told him,
and she turned to Julan. “Go back to the Winged Guar.”

“No, Fen,” Julan said, as if
he had been expecting her to say this. “I’m not letting you walk into the
Palace on your own. That’s like walking into the lion’s den.”

“Please, Julan,” Fen
whispered, willing her voice to keep steady. “I need to do this alone.”
Understanding seemed to flare in Julan’s eyes, and he nodded.

“Be careful.” He turned and
went back out into the darkening courtyard. Fen turned back to Neldam.

“Take me to the queen,” she
said, clenching her hands and forcing them not to shake. Neldam gave her a
wildly confused look, then started down the corridor, Fen right behind.

Every step they took closer to
Barenziah’s rooms, the faster Fen’s heart pounded in her chest. She had no idea
what to expect – would her grandmother call the guards as soon as she saw Fen’s
face? Or worse – would she tell Helseth the moment Fen was gone? Fen kept her
head down and hidden by her loose hair as she followed Neldam through the
Palace, which was busy with courtiers and pages doing their evening duties. Fen
heard dozens of familiar voices, and she had to struggle to keep herself from
collapsing from fear on the tiled floor.

Finally, they stopped. Neldam
knocked once on an achingly familiar door, and it was opened by Habanj,
Barenziah’s chambermaid.

“The one Queen Barenziah asked
to see, from Delitian,” Neldam said, and Habanj looked up at Fen. Fen dared not
make eye contact with the Khajiit, lest she be recognized, but she slipped into
the room at the chambermaid’s gesture, keeping her head down. At once, she was
accosted by the comforting smell of her grandmother, roses and binding glue,
and she refused to look up at the room, knowing that it would bring out too
many memories at once.

“Follow, please,” Habanj said,
and she walked towards the back of the main room to Barenziah’s bedroom. Fen
followed her slowly, drawing out each step until Habanj opened the door and
stood back for Fen to go through. Struggling to block out all the memories that
rushed in on her, Fen stepped inside and felt Habanj close the door on her
back.

“Look so that I may see you.”
Fen slowly raised her eyes to the voice that had guided her through her
childhood, and the moment she saw her grandmother’s face everything came loose
– tears sprang to her eyes and she fell into Barenziah’s arms, sobbing out
everything that had plagued her since she the second assassin.

Finally, when Fen felt she had
no more tears to cry, Barenziah held her back, studying her face.

“Oh, Fen,” she said softly,
touching her granddaughter’s cheek. “What has happened to you, child?”

“So much,” Fen choked, and
Barenziah steered her over to the fireplace, where there were two chairs that
Fen had probably spent nearly half her life sitting in, listening to her
grandmother talk. Fen sat down in the one on the left, the one that had always
been hers, and closed her eyes, leaning back against the cushions. She felt
like a cloth wrung dry of emotion. There was a small chink of silver and the sound of Barenziah settling herself in the
other chair, as she had before so many times. Fen opened her eyes, which felt
itchy and dry, and took in the elegance of her grandmother, with her smooth,
age-defiant skin and her piles of snowy hair, the simple way she sat with her
fern-green robe piled at her feet. It was a startling contrast to how Fen
imagined she looked, ash-worn and
beaten and bruised and scarred by her time on Vvardenfell.

“Drink,” Barenziah said,
gesturing to the table, where a tea tray was laid out. Fen obliged, and she
clutched the cup with quavering hands. Barenziah studied her for a time, and
Fen felt instantly relaxed with her grandmother’s familiar gaze on her. “Tell
me,” Barenziah finally said, “what happened to you after you left Mournhold.”
After a moment, Fen slowly set down her cup and began to speak. She told her
grandmother everything – her earliest days in the Mages Guild under Ranis
Athrys, living in a dingy apartment in Balmora, gathering information for Caius
Cosades, her ventures into Dwemer ruins, finding Julan at Ghostgate, climbing
Red Mountain for the first time, traveling to the Urshilaku Camp, contracting
and curing her Corprus disease, learning the words of the Nerevarine
Prophecies. She spoke of taking Moon-and-Star from the Cavern of the Incarnate,
of finding Han-Sashael’s bones with Julan and Shani, of being named Hortator
and Nerevarine, of her meeting with Vivec. She explained climbing RedMountain
again, this time to find Keening and Sunder, then assaulting the citadel of
Dagoth Ur and destroying the Heart of Lorkhan. She left out nothing, recounted
the entire previous year of her life under the unwavering attention of the
queen of Mournhold. When she had finished, she took a small sip of her now-cold
tea, her mouth dry as a bone.

“I had a feeling,” Barenziah
said softly. “When news reached Mournhold that the Nerevarine had cast down the
false gods. When they said she called herself ‘Fen,’ and they knew nothing of
her past.”

“Do many people know?”

“Not in the Palace. I was the
only one that ever called you Fen. To the rest, you are Princess Fenara, and
you have been banished to never return again.” Fen closed her eyes. Hearing her
grandmother say it made her treason feel much more real. “Fen,” Barenziah said,
and it sounded odd to hear the world’s name for her on her grandmother’s lips.
“I am so proud of you.”

For a moment, Fen just stared
at her grandmother, this beautiful, aged Dunmer with a face that was hardened
with seeing so much, and her heart skipped a beat at the thought that she was proud of Fen. Fen, who had, for
years, been certain she would live her entire life cloistered in the seclusion
of the Palace, whose people would never even know her name, who had spent much
of her youth staring longingly past the Palace walls. And Barenziah was proud
of her.

“Thank you,” she whispered,
and the ghost of a shadow appeared on her grandmother’s lips. For a long while,
they remained like that, both women watching one another silently, conveying so
much through their near-identical eyes.

“I do not know what to do,”
Fen confessed finally. “I want Father to accept me, but I do not want to return
to hiding in the Palace for my entire life.” Barenziah studied her
granddaughter thoughtfully for a moment, her penetrating eyes pensive.

“I cannot speak to him, for he
will not listen,” she told Fen. “Now, action is the only way that you can set
things right. Mournhold is a town of two minds, my Fen. On the one hand, there
is the monarchy, led by your father, and on the other there is the Temple, and the goddess
Almalexia. It is hard to know whom you may trust. While there has been no open
hostility between the two, there are always undercurrents that bear watching.”
Barenziah leaned her cheek on one hand, gazing into the dark ashes in the grate
of the fireplace. “I would like you to make yourself known to the Temple, though not as a
princess. See what you can learn. Speak to Fedris Hler. He is a powerful man in
the Temple, a
confidant of Almalexia.” Fen smiled slightly despite herself.

“The Temple does not think much of me these days,
Grandmother.”

“Then it would be best if you
did not tell them who you really are, wouldn’t it? The Nerevarine or Helseth’s daughter.” Fen leaned back
in her chair, staring at her scratched and scarred hands.

“I don’t understand,” she said
after a moment. “When I was young, we always went to Temple. You told me stories of how Almalexia
walked the streets and healed the sick. I…” Fen paused, looking back up at
Barenziah. “I thought that, if anyone, she was the one of the Tribunal I could
trust.”

“For the Dunmer, Almalexia has
always represented the motherly virtues of compassion and forgiveness, healing
and protection, but in recent years, since the war with Dagoth Ur, she has
become a harsher, more unsympathetic patron. Almalexia has changed, and many
followers feel she has not changed for the better. A movement within the
priesthood critical of current practices – the Dissident priests – has been
ruthlessly suppressed by the Temple.”

Before Fen could reply, there
was a timid knock at the door. Barenziah stood sharply and opened it, revealing
Habanj standing there, though her view of Fen was blocked by the Queen.

“You must leave now,” she said
softly. “And we cannot meet like this again, Fen.” Fen stood slowly, and
Barenziah enveloped her in her warm, strong arms, letting Fen breathe in the
old scent of her silken, snow-white hair. “You are so strong,” Barenziah
whispered. “Do not let that strength die, my Fen.” Barenziah stood back,
cupping Fen’s cheek in her hands and smiling, very faintly. “You are a smart
girl, and you will be all right. Seek out Fedris Hler, and perhaps that will
set you on your way toward your father’s recognition.” Fen nodded silently and
Barenziah pulled at old cloak from her closet. “Cover your face,” she said,
handing Fen the cloak. “I will have the page lead you out through the kitchens,
just in case, but it is still best you are not seen.”